Third floor of Orange County Courthouse reopened

UPDATE: GOSHEN -- The third floor of the Orange County Courthouse has been reopened after being temporarily closed Wednesday morning, apparently due to flooding from a damaged or broken pipe.

A work crew was cleaning up the damage and the morning court sessions in the affected courtrooms -- Courtroom 12 through 15, including the criminal court calendar.

As lawyers and others arrived for third-floor cases, court officers were explaining the problem to them. The first-floor elevators were blocked off by stanchions, and a sign advised people that the third floor was closed, and to use the stairs to get to the second floor. On the second floor, a court officer stood in front of the elevator doors directing people, and a waste basket sat beneath a ceiling drip, a puddle of water at its base.

For the past few weeks, there's been a leak next to a vent in the third floor ceiling outside Courtroom 15 -- a leak large enough that, after a snowstorm, it merited a large trash can. A smaller leak a few feet away, next to Courtroom 15's doorway, became apparent after 2011's Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee.